Perils & Dangers of the Night
by GKWriter
Summary: A sixth-year fic that looks at what might have happened if Slughorn had not kept his meeting with Tom Riddle to himself.


**Author's note: I'd like to thank my beta reader, Omenglotzer, without whose help this would be a lesser story.**

 **For anyone who has read a previous iteration of this story, it has undergone some significant surgery, so please have patience and start over.**

 **Obviously, this is a work of fanfiction – I'm just playing with characters created by J. K. Rowling.**

Hogwarts, Autumn 1944

Horace Slughorn waited until Tom Riddle had left his study before sitting back down again. He thought about another glass of the elf-made Reserve Port he had been sipping but decided that he needed something rather stronger instead and poured himself a large glass of single malt firewhisky. A wave of his wand and the fire, which had died down to a ruddy glow, leapt back into life. The soft, flickering light of the fire shone off the various trinkets and keepsakes, carefully chosen and arranged to display his impressive range of acquaintance. The whole room had been furnished and decorated to reflect the personality of its occupant and to provide the maximum possible comfort but now, tonight, it all felt somehow … wrong, as though some new discordant element had been introduced into the room which jarred with everything else.

 _So_ , he thought, _horcruxes, eh?_ As head of Slytherin House, he had occasionally wondered about how healthy Tom's influence among the students might be. Every so often there had been unpleasant rumours that led him to consider doing more than simply wondering. But this time he had solid proof that there was something going on. _Horcruxes_ , he thought again. That the boy was interested in them was obvious enough, but how far had that interest gone? If it was just an unhealthy interest in the subject, that was one thing; if he had actually gone so far as to make one and wanted to make more – wanted to make as many as seven! – that was something else entirely.

Slughorn took a long, contemplative sip from his glass and stared into the fire. The most galling part of the whole interview had been that Riddle had obviously expected that he would just hand over the information as soon as he was asked. But what was to be done about the wretched boy? The easiest course of action would be to simply let things lie but that would be irresponsible, and also possibly very damaging. What, then? He thought back over the conversation he had had with Riddle. Was there any hard evidence of anything other than an interest in horcruxes? No. So going to the headmaster could be ruled out – old Dippet had been known to have favourites among the students for several years now and Riddle was certainly one of them. More evidence would be required before the headmaster could be forced to act. What about Dumbledore, then? The Transfiguration professor had been the one who had introduced the boy to the Wizarding world in the first place; he had seen Tom's background at first hand and knew as well as any of the faculty how clever he was, but had been wary of him for some time. _Yes, Dumbledore would make a good ally_.

The clock above the mantelpiece began to chime. Slughorn was surprised. _How did it get to be that late?_ With a few flicks of his wand, he tidied up the glasses and moved the chairs that the boys had been sitting in back to their usual places. There were no classes tomorrow, which was why he had indulged Tom and his little group of cronies, but he would see Dumbledore in the morning and together they would decide what might be done.

A week after his meeting with Slughorn, Tom Riddle sat in the Hogwarts library, deep in thought. It had, Tom was now sure, been a serious mistake to ask Slughorn about horcruxes. He had not been happy about the idea to start with but the information he had managed to piece together from his long hours of research in the library had been vague and contradictory; the one thing which he had gathered from it was that making a mistake would have dire consequences and so it seemed like the only thing to do was to consult Slughorn. Old Professor Slughorn, who he could play like a Mozart piano sonata, or so he had thought. _But_ , he thought, _it seems that I have underestimated the professor_.

He had first realised that something was going wrong with his carefully planned scheme when all of his small collection of library books which contained material dealing with horcruxes was recalled. He had tried to think who else might be interested and concluded that it had to be one of the professors; he couldn't believe that another student would know enough to be able to select and recall every single one of those books because he himself had spent months patiently working through the references to find them. That realisation had made him furious and he had vented his anger to gratifying effect on two first-years who had been playing some American rubbish on a modified record player in the Slytherin common room that evening.

Tom sighed. This little alcove was his favourite spot in the library, hidden away among a maze of shelves, and he knew that even during daylight hours it was an isolated spot. Now, in the evening, not long before closing time, privacy was practically guaranteed. He could hear rain pattering against the window that was set high into the wall, somewhere in the darkness above. There was a lamp on the table, and another in a sconce set into the wall nearby, and they illuminated the shelves and little else. A small golden bubble in the dark, quiet library, it was a perfect quiet place to think away from the common room.

His initial anger having died away, Tom decided that he was simply going to have to abandon the idea of horcruxes. If Slughorn had decided to act, particularly if he had decided to tell someone else, the whole plan was simply too risky. Having to abandon so much work was deeply frustrating, of course, but there was nothing doing. _Nobody_ , he thought grimly, _ever said that eternal life was going to be easy_. He glanced at his watch; it was getting very close to closing time now so he started to pack up his things. He decided to come back at the weekend. The coming Saturday was a Hogsmeade day, and even his closest followers would want to go down to the village and indulge their appetites for butterbeer from the Three Broomsticks and sweets from Honeydukes. While they were gone, he would be able to get some peace and quiet and start work on a new plan, one which wouldn't require asking questions of Horace Slughorn.

Alexandria, July 1996

The four wizards moved slowly but with purpose through the narrow stone labyrinth of catacombs underneath the ancient Egyptian port of Alexandria. In the city of the living up above, the night air was close, warm and muggy; down below, in the city of the dead, it was even more so, and pitch dark except where the pencil-thin beams of light from four wands cut through the darkness to reveal the statues of strange synthetic gods – Roman legionaries with the heads of jackals – staring back at them from shadowy alcoves in the walls with cold stone eyes. Occasionally too there were fading frescos or portraits and inscriptions in hieroglyphs, Demotic or Greek – the names of those who lay within, or dire warnings of what would happen to anyone who dared to break in.

The air in the catacombs sang with magic, the strange refrains of the Ancient Egyptian spells in counterpoint to the later Roman and Ancient Greek ones. To the Dark Lord, it was a heady mixture but he was also aware of the danger, especially as none of his companions could feel it, at least not as sensitively. They were moving slowly to reduce the chance that they might trigger the wards around any of the ancient wizarding tombs buried underneath the city; he was confident that the promise of reward and the threat of dire punishment would motivate the young curse-breaker they had brought with them to keep the party away from anything that might trigger a reaction but had no interest in risking himself without need.

Lord Voldemort had been furious to discover from Bellatrix Lestrange that the prophecy had been destroyed in the Ministry of Magic and then anxious to know what else might be contained within it. He had heard of three oracles that might be able to answer his question and the one in the ancient catacombs of Alexandria was, he thought, the one who was most likely to be able to. And it was of the utmost importance that he felt certain, as without surety he would be unable to plan in the way that he hoped to do. The Dark Lord knew perfectly well what was said among Britain's witches and wizards – that Dumbledore was the only one he had ever feared. The Hogwarts headmaster was a great wizard, it was undeniably true, but ever since Halloween 1981 Voldemort had felt it especially important to overcome the Potter boy, who had wrecked his plans four times now. The Dark Lord had known from the very beginning that Snape had only heard part of the prophecy and had determined that he would not act again without full knowledge of what it said about him and the boy. So doubt secretly gnawed at him as he trod slowly, deliberately, down the passageway, and into the darkness.

Eventually, the small passageway down which they had turned came to an end. Ahead there was a doorway, two upright stone posts, carved in imitation of Ionic columns, with a stone lintel across the top, opening into yet more heavy darkness. In the light of their wands, they could see that there were hieroglyphs carved into the lintel and the curse-breaker went ahead and examined them, then took a step back and passed the glowing tip of his wand in a complex pattern over the opening.

'This is it, my lord,' he announced.

'You are sure?'

'Yes, my lord.'

'There are no wards or protective enchantments?'

'No, my lord. It is safe to proceed.'

'Very well. I will go forward alone. You three will wait here.' With that, the Dark Lord walked through the doorway. The others made themselves as comfortable as they could in the pitch darkness and prepared to wait. They had been there by the doorway for nearly an hour when the Dark Lord returned and scrambled to their feet as he approached. 'Let us go,' was all that he said.

The next day, the Dark Lord and his companions left Egypt and crossed to the other side of the Mediterranean, appearing in a grove of pine trees on a hillside in Greece. As they walked up the slope, they saw that they were on a promontory, with the deep blue sea spread out on either side. When the group came to the half dozen columns that loomed up out of the sere grass and which were the only remains of the temple that had once perched at the head of the promontory, the Dark Lord spoke: 'Carew, come here.' The curse-breaker hastily obeyed. 'Can we approach?' Again, the curse-breaker began to scan the area around them but seemed to find nothing.

Carew looked towards the temple and asked, 'With my lord's permission? I will look to see if there is anything nearer. There do not appear to be any distant wards.' Voldemort nodded his agreement and the curse-breaker moved forward, scanning carefully. When he came back, he said, 'Nothing, my lord. Only the standard muggle-repelling charms that the Greek ministry will have put up.'

'Very well. Stay here until I return.'

The Dark Lord began to walk towards the temple remains as his followers stretched themselves out in the long grass to enjoy the Greek sun. This time they had less than an hour to wait before Voldemort was back, again apparently disappointed. He did not stop as he walked past them, simply waving his hand in a 'follow me' gesture that his three followers hastened to obey.

The three sat in the cool shade of the palm trees, out of the sweltering heat of the Egyptian sun. Out in the desert, far from the coast or the Nile, the heat was intense. They lounged gratefully, glad that their journey was over; their leader had been in an odd mood for the past few days, and both the Death Eaters and the young curse-breaker had been profoundly glad to see him disappear into the darkness of the Oracle's temple. A hidden doorway had been carved into the rock of the mountain, below the forlorn mudbrick ruins of what the muggle tourists thought was the temple, and an ominous silence now flowed out of it. The sprawled-out Death Eaters occasionally glanced towards it, looking for a sign of the Dark Lord's return, but none came.

Lord Voldemort had indeed been in a strange mood, and his minions had been lucky none of them had done anything to incur his anger. Two of the three oracles that he had been hoping to consult no longer existed – their chambers had been deserted, all traces of the powerful magic that they had once contained gone. The Great Oracle of Siwa was his last hope. Eventually, as he made his way along the underground passageway, he saw a light ahead of him: the flickering ruddy glow of torchlight. Stepping into the cave, he saw the figure of the Oracle sat on a sort of throne, carved into the rock. She was almost floodlit by a pool of shimmering golden light. The Dark Lord approached, and the Oracle spoke.

'What do you seek here, Tom Riddle?' Her voice was harsh and rasping, and echoed strangely in the chamber.

'Answers. I seek the truth.' His own high, cold voice echoed off the walls.

'Answers? How can you seek answers when you have not yet asked any questions?'

'I wish to know about Harry Potter. How does his fate relate to my own?'

'I see two wizards intertwined, the one with the other, like vine stalks and neither can live while the other survives. But a turn of Fortune's wheel will cast down the lesser of the two and raise up the greater. Indeed, the wheel is already moving. Beware, Tom Riddle: the ghosts of the past will not remain buried for long! The dead do not walk by your side, as they do by that of the boy. You will remain ignorant of the paths trodden by those who have gone on.'

At these words, Voldemort smiled, and twisted his long, thin form into a half bow. Then, he abruptly turned and left, striding confidently back up into the world. _The way is finally clear. I should not have spent so much time on Potter. He is not the threat that I believed him to be, and his days are numbered…_

As he re-emerged into the late afternoon heat, the little band of Death Eaters leapt apprehensively to their feet. Voldemort did not stop. Not even breaking his stride, he called back to them.

'Come. We have work to do.'

There were a series of soft pops as the group Disapparated, and the oasis was left calm and still again in the baking sun.

Diagon Alley, August 1996

So far as Harry Potter was concerned, it had been a decidedly mixed summer. On the one hand, the school holiday had effectively begun with the death of his godfather Sirius Black in the Ministry of Magic's Department of Mysteries and the revelation by Professor Dumbledore that a prophecy had been made by Professor Trelawney that said that Harry was the one with the power to defeat the Dark Lord, Lord Voldemort. On the other hand, it had also been the shortest summer that Harry had ever spent with the Dursleys – after a mere two weeks, Professor Dumbledore had come to Little Whinging and taken Harry with him, first to visit his old colleague Horace Slughorn in order to persuade him to return to teach at Hogwarts and then to spend the rest of the summer – including his sixteenth birthday – with his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley at the Burrow, the Weasley family home. The Hogwarts headmaster had added the further revelation that Sirius's will had been discovered and that he had left Harry all of his possessions, including his gloomy house in London, No. 12 Grimmauld Place. Harry hadn't been keen on the idea of owning the house, or Kreacher – the house elf who came with it – but as Professor Dumbledore had pointed out, it was better than letting Kreacher and the house go to either Narcissa Malfoy or Bellatrix Lestrange, as seemed likely. Harry had also discovered the morning after his rather late arrival that Fleur Delacour, the French part-Veela who had represented Beauxbatons in the Tri-Wizard Tournament, was engaged to Bill Weasley and was staying at the Burrow, something that seemed to be a source of great irritation to Mrs Weasley, Ginny and Hermione.

On the day he had arrived at the Burrow, the results of the OWL exams that the three had sat at the end of their fifth year had arrived and Harry had been happy to see that he would be able to take all the courses that he needed in order to become an Auror, with the exception of Potions, where he had not achieved the marks that Professor Snape demanded from students taking the NEWT level course in his subject. Harry was disappointed that he would be unable to take up his dream job but also relieved to be spared any more time in the dungeons taking Potions classes with Snape, who hated him; Harry returned the feeling, especially since he suspected that the Potions professor had not warned the Order of the Phoenix as quickly as he might have done when Harry had tried to tell him about his vision of Sirius in the Ministry.

After Harry's birthday – which had been somewhat gloomy, overshadowed by stories of deaths and mysterious disappearances that they all knew related to the rise of Lord Voldemort appearing practically every day in the _Daily Prophet_ – Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ron's sister Ginny and Mr and Mrs Weasley had travelled into London to visit the Wizarding shopping street Diagon Alley to pick up everything they would need for the year ahead. They had met up with Hagrid, assigned by Professor Dumbledore to act as extra security, but everything had gone smoothly with the exception of a run-in with Draco Malfoy and his mother in Madam Malkin's when they had gone in to buy new robes for school.

It was when the group were on their way to see the Twins' new shop, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, that Harry suddenly felt chilly. It had not been the warmest of summers, full of unexpected mists, but this was colder than usual. Harry turned around to say something to Ron, who was walking beside him, when Hagrid snapped from behind them, 'Alright, you lot, get into cover quick. There's trouble coming.'

They sped up, making for the Twins' shop, which was not far away now, Mrs Weasley urging them on, saying, 'Come on, you heard Hagrid. And stick together!' They were nearly at the joke shop when there was an outburst of screams and the sounds of disapparition. Harry turned and to his horror saw a group of Dementors making their way along the Alley. He drew his wand and prepared to cast the Patronus charm if the Dementors got any closer. He had promised Dumbledore on the night when he had arrived at the Burrow that he wouldn't go looking for trouble, but if trouble came looking for him, Harry was prepared to defend himself.

As Fred and George ushered the group quickly into the shop, Harry turned in the doorway and took one last look at what was happening outside in the Alley. Someone had clearly called the Auror Office because figures in the red uniform robes were now apparating into the Alley, driving the Dementors back with Patronus charms. But there were not enough Aurors and it looked as though a group of the eerie black-clad creatures had surrounded someone outside one of the shops. Instinctively, Harry pointed his wand at the group and, summoning up his happiest memory, shouted, 'Expecto Patronum!' The great silver stag erupted from his wand and sped towards the Dementors, forcing them away from a figure that had collapsed to the ground in a doorway.

Eventually, after the Aurors had visited the shop and checked to make sure that everyone was alright and that nobody needed to be taken to the Healers at St Mungo's, they were allowed to go, both Hermione and Mrs Weasley berating Harry for being the last one inside the shop.

It was about a week after their visit to Diagon Alley when the letter arrived. When he had brought Harry to the Burrow, Dumbledore had explained that the Ministry were checking the Weasley family's post but it was a jarring reminder of the security measures that had been put in place for his benefit to see Ministry owls bringing packages with official seals on them to ensure that they weren't tampered with en route. As Mrs Weasley was sorting through the letters, she said, 'Oh, and there's one for you here, Harry,' and passed it over to him as he sat at the kitchen table drinking a cup of tea.

'Who'd be writing to me?' Harry wondered out loud. 'Just about everyone who'd normally send me a letter is already here.' For a moment, he wondered whether it might be Remus Lupin, but one look at the handwriting on the envelope was enough to tell him it wasn't from Lupin – it was an elegant, feminine hand, writing in green ink, very different to his old Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher's. When he opened the envelope to take out the parchment inside, there was a waft of delicate, expensive perfume that added another layer to the mystery – nobody Harry knew sent him perfumed letters. He glanced down at the signature at the bottom of the page.

'Who's that from?' The question was Hermione's and Harry looked up to see her and Ron watching him curiously.

'Daphne Greengrass,' Harry said slowly.

'Greengrass?' Ron asked. 'Isn't she the one with the …' He took advantage of his mother's turned back to make an eloquently descriptive gesture with his hands. Hermione smacked the back of his head. It was true that Daphne's figure had been the subject of a fair amount of fevered discussion in the Gryffindor boys' dormitory: with her blue eyes, blonde hair and elegant curves, she was not easily missed at Hogwarts and her looks combined with her aristocratic poise and rather stand-offish manner meant she made an intimidating presence. Even Seamus, who rated his own charms very highly, had been reduced to awkward stuttering by a single cutting remark from Daphne Greengrass.

'What does she want?' Hermione asked.

'Apparently, she wants me to have dinner at her house.'

'What? Why would she do that? I mean, have you ever even spoken to her before?'

'It says something about there being a debt between us and she'd like to invite me to dinner at what I assume is her house to discuss the matter further.'

'Mate, you can't be thinking about going? She's in Slytherin, isn't she?' Ron's tone was horrified.

'Actually, I think I'd like to,' said Harry decisively.

Daphne was nervous. There was a lot riding on the dinner that she was hosting that evening. She had known that she would never get permission from her father for what she was proposing to do so she had simply selected an evening when she knew that he was planning to go with her stepmother to a play at the Wizards' Globe in London and approached her grandfather instead. Her grandfather took a more nuanced view of the situation than her father did and had eventually given his permission once Daphne had explained her plan.

Now, she was waiting just inside the wards, looking out through the gates at the lane where Potter and his escort were apparently going to arrive. It wasn't difficult to image what Draco would have said about that if he had known: 'Famous Harry Potter! Can't even go to dinner without a bodyguard!' Although a lot of Draco's complaints could be put down to his petulance, it wasn't hard to see why he thought that Potter got preferential treatment, and there were plenty of examples of his awful temper. It was the one potential major problem with the plan so far as Daphne was concerned – how difficult would it be to actually deal with Potter?

There was a pop and Potter appeared in the lane accompanied by a short witch with a heart-shaped face. They approached the gates and Daphne thought, _Well, here we go_. She opened the gates, gave her most graceful curtsey and said, 'Welcome to Lakeham Hall.'

The witch came up to her first, Potter following, looking rather awkward. At least he had bothered to dress properly, she thought, noting his dress robes. 'Daphne Greengrass? I'm Auror Tonks. I'll be around just to make sure that nothing happens to young Harry here.'

'Of course,' Daphne said graciously. 'I quite understand.' The auror then performed what Daphne realized what must be a disillusionment charm on herself and seemed to disappear into the hedgerow. That left her with Potter, who seemed to be trying his best to look anywhere but at her. 'Welcome,' Daphne said.

'Er, thanks,' Potter said hesitantly. 'Thanks for inviting me.'

'Thank you for accepting my invitation. It's such a lovely evening, isn't it? I thought that we might eat outside – it seems a shame to waste the opportunity, since we've had so few of them this summer.'

'Sounds good to me,' he said. Daphne led the way through the grounds to the summer house where she had asked the elves to serve dinner. The summer house stood by a small lake with a view across the gardens to the house beyond. She had talked about the house and grounds as they went out, mentioning things that she thought might be interesting like the beds of magical herbs in the kitchen garden closer to the house and pointing out the chestnut trees from which her family had sold wand quality wood to Ollivander's for generations. But he had answered in monosyllables, or close enough, to all of it and Daphne was now beginning to feel a bit awkward herself – Potter was clearly going to be a problematic guest, but not in the way that she had expected because she was now beginning to conclude that he was actually quite shy rather than stuck up in the way that Draco and the others had always said and if the plan was going to come to anything, she would have to break through his shyness and get him to relax.

When they got to the summer house, Daphne found everything as she had planned: the French windows had been opened and their curtains drawn back to give a good view out to the grounds and to allow the evening breeze to flow through while the small table had been covered with a crisp white tablecloth and two places were set. There were lit candles in a candle holder in the middle of the table and what looked like a decanter of watered red wine. After they had sat down, Daphne decided that the time had come to act. She looked straight at Potter and asked: 'Are you always this nervous? I don't bite, you know.'

Harry had been pleasantly surprised by how easily Dumbledore had agreed that he could accept Daphne Greengrass's invitation to dinner, so long as he took Tonks with him. But once they had actually arrived, the nerves that had been building up inside him had come to a head. Harry wouldn't have said that he had a problem talking with girls as such – he could talk perfectly easily to Hermione and Ginny but only because he knew them both so well. Greengrass, however, was clearly a very different kind of girl: so polished and so famously intimidating that he felt as nervous as he had trying to find a date for the Yule Ball during the Triwizard Tournament. It was exactly the same problem that he had found when he had tried to spend time with Cho Chang. And once they had arrived, and especially after Tonks had disappeared, leaving him alone with Greengrass, he had become so nervous that he could barely say more than a word or two to her. This had lasted all the way through the grounds to the summer house where they were to be eating. There, she fixed him with those cool blue eyes and asked, 'Are you always this nervous? I don't bite, you know.'

Harry was so startled by the question that at first he didn't know how to respond. Greengrass kept looking at him, and a faint air of something that seemed like disappointment crept into her expression. _For God's sake_ , Harry thought to himself, _she thinks you're a complete idiot. Say something!_ 'No,' he eventually managed to get out. 'I'm not always this nervous. And I'm sure you don't bite.' But then he added, 'Not often, at least.' It was the same demon that led him to talk back to Snape in Potions classes and for a similar reason – the air of disappointment that he thought he had seen in her expression, as though he hadn't come up to expectations. Unlike Snape, thankfully, Greengrass's response to that remark was just to laugh.

'The difference between them and you,' she said, 'is that you have not done anything to offend me. Finnegan made an indecent proposition, and so did McLaggen. I don't see why I should take that sort of behaviour lightly.'

'Oh, so it _was_ you that sent Seamus that cursed note in the post.' It had been a topic of conversation among the fifth-year Gryffindor boys for a while: whatever the curse had been, Seamus had got up and walked away from the Great Hall just as gingerly as Fred and George had when they had complained about the side-effects of testing their joke sweets on themselves; Seamus, though, had been rather more pale than Harry had ever remembered Fred and George looking, and he had steadfastly refused afterwards to say what had happened to him.

'I admit nothing,' was all that Greengrass said to that. She then continued, 'The other difference is that I owe you a debt of gratitude, but shall we discuss that later? I assume that you agree that business and the table shouldn't mix? My father always says so, at least.'

While they were speaking, the first course had appeared on the plates in front of them: pâté with bread and a little salad. The conversation was switched deftly to quidditch and there it stayed for the rest of the meal as they discussed the shocking performance that the Chudley Cannons had put in the previous season and their prospects for next year (not good, was the conclusion) as well as the prospects for the Appleby Arrows, the team that Greengrass supported, who were doing a lot better than the Cannons (not that that was saying much). As the conversation went on, Harry started to relax a little more. Once the dessert plates had been cleared away (an excellent apple tart), Greengrass said, 'So, shall we get to business?'

Harry felt a slight twinge of nervousness about what might be about to come next but simply said, 'Yes, let's.'

'My brother, my sister and I were shopping on Diagon Alley on the same day that you were,' Greengrass began. 'Somehow we got separated and when the Dementors arrived, my sister and my brother were inside the shop and I was left outside. I thought I was going to be Kissed for sure until a Patronus forced the Dementors away. Your Patronus, as I have since discovered. I feel that this means I owe you a debt of honour for saving my soul and I wish to discuss with you the repayment of that debt.'

'How do you know that I'm the one that you owe this debt to? There were Aurors there – it could have been one of them.'

'My grandfather,' said Greengrass. 'He made enquiries for me at the Ministry. He still has a few contacts there who are willing to ask questions for him. The reports from the Aurors say that none of them cast the Patronus that saved me and that you were the only other one there that day who cast one. So, my proposition is this. I would like to offer myself to you as an advisor on the usual terms.'

'An advisor? Advising on what?'

'On whatever matters you feel you might need advice. As a Pureblood from an old family and as a cunning Slytherin, I will have a very different perspective from Granger or Weasley and it might be useful to you.'

'And what are the usual terms?' Greengrass gave him a blank look.

'You don't know?'

'I was raised by muggles – my aunt and uncle. The first time I learned that magic even existed was when Hagrid brought me my Hogwarts letter on my eleventh birthday. So this probably isn't the only thing that you're going to have to explain.'

'We'll need to come to an agreement on how I would serve as an advisor – normally it's three, five or seven years – and what the restrictions are – normally there's a secrecy clause in agreements like this, to make sure that once the agreement has run its course, neither side can take advantage of the other. In this case, as you saved my soul, I'd suggest a seven-year contract with the standard Effingham privacy agreement. That is, I'd be forbidden from discussing your secrets with anyone and you wouldn't be able to discuss mine either.'

'The secrecy part sounds fine. But I'm not comfortable with the idea of someone binding themselves to me for seven years. It could prove to be dangerous.'

'I'm hardly binding myself to you – just agreeing to offer advice when necessary. And seven years in exchange for my soul is actually not much at all. Unless you think I'm over-valuing it?'

'No, that's not what I meant…' Harry stopped as he caught the teasing expression in her eyes. 'Look,' he said, 'people who are close to me end up getting injured or killed. All I meant to say was that I can see that you're trying to pay a debt, but for your own safety, you might want to consider some other way.'

'And what if I said to you that I think this is the best way? That I'm prepared to run the risk? Besides which, if I'm giving you advice, you won't end up in so many dangerous situations!'

'That's not really how it works…' Harry stopped short as he realised that actually, Greengrass was making quite a good point. Hadn't Hermione told him that what he had seen couldn't necessarily be trusted? Advice and information coming from another source, even if it was a Slytherin, might be useful, especially as she would know things that neither he nor Hermione did and that it might not occur to Ron to mention. And he could always ask Bill Weasley or Mr Weasley to look over any contracts before he signed them, to make sure that he wasn't signing up to anything that he would regret later. 'You know what,' he said, 'Greengrass, you're on.'

'Excellent.'


End file.
